Best-selling author Glenn Greenwald has received plenty of praise, but even he knew his most recent article might not be popular with everyone.

“I seem to have triggered national waves of rage among Canadians,” Greenwald said.

The investigative journalist who exposed CIA secrets provided by Edward Snowden spoke at McGill University Thursday night.

More than 600 people packed Pollack Hall to listen to Greenwald speak.

After Martin Couture-Rouleau hit two Canadian soldiers with his car, killing one on Monday in St. Jean sur Richelieu, he wrote an article asking why Canadian officials were calling a terror attack on Canadian soil "shocking."

“I have no doubt that that community where that act took place is peaceful, but the foreign policy of Canada is not peaceful,” he said.

The article was published less than an hour before another Canadian solider was shot in Ottawa.

Some attendees say the timing was inappropriate, but others say Greenwald is asking for more accountability from western nations.

Canada fought in Afghanistan for more than a decade, and just recently the government has ordered fighter jets to fight ISIS alongside U.S. forces.

Greenwald says Canadian policies have killed thousands abroad and so a response on Canadian soil by so called "radicals" should not come as a surprise.

“That is not remotely to say that that violence is justifiable, only that it is inevitable,” he clarified.

The attacks in St. Jean sur Richelieu and Ottawa have been widely condemned and called "terrorist acts" by many Canadian officials.

But others say determining why these two men chose such violent paths needs to be a top priority.